Learn about the background of Kyield and the multi-disciplinary science involved with AI systems, with a particular focus on AI augmentation for knowledge work and how to achieve a continuously adaptive learning organization (CALO).

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION ……………………………………………………………………………………..

REVOLUTION IN IT-ENABLED COMPETITIVENESS …………………………………………..

POWER OF TRANSDISCIPLINARY CONVERGENCE …………………………………………..

MANAGEMENT CONSULTING ……………………………………………………………………

COMPUTER SCIENCE AND PHYSICS…………………………………………………………….

ECONOMICS AND PSYCHOLOGY ………………………………………………………………..

LIFE SCIENCES AND HEALTHCARE……………………………………………………………

PRODUCTS AND INDUSTRY PLATFORMS…………………………………………………….

KYIELD OS …………………………………………………………………………………………..

THE KYIELD PERSONALIZED HEALTHCARE PLATFORM ………………………………….

ACCELERATED R&D: THE LIVING ONTOLOGY ………………………………………………

SPECIFIC LIFE SCIENCE AND HEALTHCARE USE CASES …………………………………

BANKING AND FINANCIAL SERVICES ………………………………………………………..

THE PILOT PROCESS ……………………………………………………………………………..

EXAMPLE: BANKING, PHASE 1…………………………………………………………………

PHASE 2…………………………………………………………………………………………….

PHASE 3…………………………………………………………………………………………….

PHASE 4…………………………………………………………………………………………….

CONCLUSION: IN THIS CASE THE END JUSTIFIES THE MEANS …………………………21

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While it may be an interesting question whether the seasons are changing in artificial intelligence (AI), or to what extent the entertainment industry is herding pop culture, it may not have much to do with future reality. Given recent attention AI has received and the unique potential for misunderstanding, I thought a brief story from the trenches in the Land of Enchantment might shed some light.

The topic of AI recently came up at Santa Fe Institute (SFI) during a seminar by Hamid Benbrahim surrounding research in financial markets. Several senior scientists chimed in during Hamid’s talk representing computer science (CS), physics (2), neuroscience, biology, and philosophy, as well as several practioners with relevant experience. SFI is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year as a pioneer in complexity research where these very types of topics are explored, attracting leading thinkers worldwide.

Following the talk I continued to discuss financial reforms and technology with Daniel C. Dennett, who is an external professor at SFI. While known as an author and philosopher, Professor Dennett is also Co-Director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University with extensive published works in CS and AI. Professor Dennett shared a personal case that provides historical and perhaps futuristic context involving a well-known computer scientist at a leading lab during the commercialization era of the World Wide Web. The scientist was apparently concerned with the potential negative impact on authors given the exponentially increasing mass of content, and I suspect also feared the network effect in certain types of consumer services that quickly result in winner-takes-all dominance.

Professor Dennett apparently attempted to reassure his colleague by pointing out that his concerns, while understandable, were likely unjustified for the mid-term as humans have a consistent history of adapting to technological change, as well as adapting technology to fill needs. In this case, Dennett envisioned the rise of specialty services that would find, filter, and presumably broker in some fashion the needs of reader and author. Traditional publishing may change even more radically than we’ve since observed, but services would rise, people and models would adapt.

One reason complexity attracts leading thinkers in science and business is the potential benefit across all areas of life and economy. The patterns and methods discovered in one field are increasingly applied to others in no small part due to collaboration, data sharing, and analytics. David Wolpert for example stated his reasoning for joining SFI part-time from LANL was a desire to work on more than one discipline simultaneously. Many others have reported similarly both for the potential impact from sharing knowledge between disciplines and the inherent challenge. I can certainly relate from my own work in applied complex adaptive systems, which at times seems as if God or Nature were teasing the ego of human intellect. Working with highly complex systems tends to be a humbling experience.

That is not to say, however, that humans are primitive or without power to alter our destiny. Our species did not come to dominate Earth due to ignorance or lack of skills, for better or worse. We are blessed with the ability to intentionally craft tools and systems not just for attention-getting nefariousness, but solving problems, and yes being compensated for doing so. Achieving improvement increasingly requires designs that reduce the undesirable impacts of complexity, which tend to accumulate as increased risk, cost, and difficulty.

Few informed observers claim that technological change is pain-free as disruptions and displacements occur, organizations do fail, and individuals do lose jobs, particularly in cultures that resist macro change rather than proactively adapt to changing conditions. That is after all the nature of creative destruction. Physics, regulations, and markets may allow us to control some aspects of technology, manage processes in others, and hopefully introduce simplicity, ease of use, and efficiency, but there is no escaping the tyranny of complexity, for even if society attempted to ban complexity, nature would not comply, nor would humans if history is any guide. The risk of catastrophic events from biological and human engineered threats would remain regardless. The challenge is to optimize the messy process to the best of our ability with elegant and effective solutions while preventing extreme volatility, catastrophic events, and as some of us intend—lead to a more sustainable, healthy planet.

The dynamics involved with tech-led disruption are well understood to be generally beneficial to greater society, macroeconomics, and employment. Continual improvements with small disruptions are much less destructive and more beneficial than violent events that have occurred throughout history in reaction to extreme chronic imbalances. Diversification, competition, and churn are not only healthy, but essential to progress and ultimately survival. However, the messy task is made far more costly and painful than necessary, including to those most impacted, as entrenched cultures resist that which they should be embracing. Over time all manner of protectionist methods are employed to defend against change, essential disruption, or power erosion, eventually to include manipulation of the political process, which often has toxic and corrosive impacts. As I am writing this a description following a headline in The Wall Street Journalreads as follows:

“Initiatives intended to help restrain soaring college costs are facing resistance from schools and from a bipartisan bloc of lawmakers looking to protect institutions in their districts.”

Reading this article reminded me of an interview with Ángel Cabrera, who I had the pleasure of getting to know when he was President of Thunderbird University, now in the same role at George Mason University. His view as I recall was that the reforms necessary in education were unlikely to come from within, and would require external disruptive competition. Regardless of role at the time, my experience has been similar. A majority of cultures fiercely resist change, typically agreeing only to reforms that benefit the interests of narrow groups with little concern for collective impact or macro needs. Yet society often looks to entrenched institutions for expertise, leadership, and decision power, despite obvious conflicts of interest, thus creating quite a dilemma for serious thinkers and doers. As structural barriers grow over time it becomes almost impossible to introduce new technology and systems regardless of need or merit. Any such scenario is directly opposed to proper governance policy, or what is understood to result in positive outcomes.

Consider then recent research demonstrating that resistance to change and patterns of human habit are caused in part by chemicals in the brain, and so we are left with an uncomfortable awareness that some cultures are almost certainly and increasingly knowingly exploiting fear and addiction to protect personal power and financial benefits that are often unsustainable, and eventually more harmful than tech-enabled adaptation to the very special interests they are charged with serving, not to mention the rest of society who would clearly benefit. This would seem to cross the line of motivation for change to civic duty to support those who appear to be offering the best emerging solutions to our greatest problems.

This situation of entrenched interests conflicting with the greater good provides the motivation for many involved with both basic and applied R&D, innovation, and business building. Most commonly associated with the culture of Silicon Valley, in fact the force for rational reforms and innovation has become quite global in recent years, although resistance to even the most obvious essential changes are still at times shockingly stubborn and effective.

Given these observations combined with awareness that survival of any organization or species requires adaptation to constantly changing conditions, one can perhaps see why I asked the following questions during various phases of our R&D:

Why not intentionally embrace continuous improvement and adaptation?

Why not tailor data consumption and analytics to the specific needs of each entity?

Why not prevent readily preventable crises?

Why not accelerate discoveries and attribute human capital more accurately and justly?

Why not rate, incentivize, and monetize mission-oriented knowledge?

The story I shared in conversation with Dan Dennett at SFI was timely and appropriate to this topic as philosophy not only deserves a seat at the table with AI, but also has contributed to many of the building blocks that make the technology possible, such as mathematics and data structures, among others.

The primary message I want to convey is that we all have a choice and responsibility as agents for positive change, and our actions impact the future, especially with AI systems. For example, given that AI has the capacity to significantly accelerate scientific discovery, improve health outcomes, and reduce crises, I have long believed ethics requires that we deploy the technology. However, given that we are also well aware that high unemployment levels are inhumane, contain considerable moral hazard, and risk for civil unrest, AI should be deployed surgically and with great care. I do not support wide deployment of AI for the primary purpose of replacing human workers. Rather, I have focused my R&D efforts on optimizing human capital and learning in the near-term. To the best of my awareness this is not only the most ethical path forward for AI systems, but is also good business strategy as I think the majority of decision makers in organizations are of similar mind on the issue.

In closing, from the perspective of an early advisor to very successful tech companies rather than inventor and founder of an AI system, I’d like to support the concerns of others. While we need to be cautious with spreading undue fear, it has become clear to me that some of the more informed warnings are not unjustified. Some highly competitive cultures particularly in IT engineering have demonstrated strong anti-human behavior, including companies I am close to who would I think quite probably not self-restrain actions based on ethics or macro social needs, regardless of evidence presented to them. In this regard they are no different than the protectionist cultures they would replace, and at least as dangerous. I strongly disagree with such extreme philosophies. I believe technology should be tapped to serve humans and other species, with exceptions reserved for contained areas such as defense and space research where humans are at risk, or in areas such as surgery where machine precision in some cases are superior to humans and therefore of service.

Many AI applications and systems are now sufficiently mature for adoption, the potential value and functionality are clearly unprecedented, and competitive pressures are such in most sectors that to not engage in emerging AI could well determine organizational fate in the not-too-distant future. The question then is not whether to deploy AI, or increasingly even when, but rather how, which, and with whom. About fifteen years ago during an intense learning curve I published a note in our network for global thought leaders that the philosophy of the architect is embedded in the code—it just often requires a qualified eye to see it. This is where problems in adoption of emerging technology often arise as those few who are qualified include a fair percentage of biased and conflicted individuals who don’t necessarily share a high priority for the best interest of the customer.

My advice to decision makers and chief influencers is to engage in AI, but choose your consultants, vendors, and partners very carefully.

A topic of considerable thought, discussion and debate for many of us long before a series of ever-larger crises, the Santa Fe Institute (SFI) chose the theme of complexity in regulation for their annual meeting this week. Prior to sharing my thoughts on the important topic of simplifying regulation in a future post, which will be covered more extensively in my book in progress, I want to focus a bit on SFI.

I was fortunate to attend last year’s 25th anniversary meeting at SFI, but this year I was only able to view the final full day via webcast, which was excellent. The official SFI about page can be found here, although having written many of these descriptions myself; I’ve yet to write or read one that captures the essence of the organization, people, or contributions, so please allow the liberty of a few additional lines in first person.

I have been following SFI regularly for over 15 years, and since moving to Santa Fe nearly two years ago have had many interactions. SFI essentially pioneered complexity as a discipline, but has also been a leader in what I refer to in my own work as a mega disciplinary approach to discovery, without which frankly many researchers and their cultures can become blinded, and discoveries stalled, with R&D performing substantially below potential.

One of several strengths at SFI is their ability to draw from a very broad universe of scholars, each of whom is a leading expert in a specific discipline, but also share an interest in complexity theory—which affects everything else, as well as the need to work across disciplines to optimize learning.

The intimate size and environment of SFI is no doubt partially responsible for attracting so many leading scholars to contribute and engage. After living in Santa Fe, visiting the campus and attending multiple events, with a great many exchanges with larger institutions for 30 years, I can certainly understand the appeal for permanent faculty, visiting scholars, post docs, and business network members.

This year’s event was organized by Chris Wood and David Krakauer, who are two individuals at SFI I have had the pleasure to get to know recently (forgive my informality here; it comes natural). David heads up the faculty and Chris divides his time between research, administration, and running the SFI business network. These two represent a diverse faculty and also make an interesting combination, with Chris being the calm diplomatic type while David exudes sufficient rebelliousness at times for me to wonder, despite his brilliance, how he prospered at Cambridge (due to my own rebel instincts and frustration with academia), until reflecting on his current role. It is precisely the challenge when shepherding deep diversity that brings out the best in people; one of several skills David demonstrates when leading groups.

A good way to learn more about SFI from afar is to view a sample of their research online, including videos. Their model, however, like many—is not perfect, as the institute is substantially dependent on donations in what has been a very uncertain time and economy of late, so for those who may be seeking a worthy tax deduction this year, I would urge you to consider a donation. For larger corporations and foundations, I recommend exploring the SFI business network, which is similar in many respects to the experimental virtual network I operated in the late 1990s, but also benefits from the physical conference interactions throughout the year, not just with SFI scientists and staff, but also with other business network members. Several of our network members have also been business network members of SFI, so I have known quite a few over the past dozen years, including Franz Dill on our Kyield advisory board who represented P & G for many years at SFI. For corporate and foundation executives in particular, I highly recommend viewing a short video interview with SFI Vice President Nancy Deutsch to explore relationship options.

Unlike universities and federal labs that grew large physical empires with massive overhead, the small size of SFI, fewer conflicts, independence, location and talent attract exceptional human quality, providing a rare situation certainly worth preserving and improving. My hope for SFI is that the community and entity will continue to adapt, evolve, and forge a strong and diverse financial structure that could become a model for the future.

While it may not always be obvious to some of my colleagues in business and finance, the independent theoretical research produced by SFI is essential for thinking through and eventually helping to overcome the world’s most pressing challenges, which is from my perspective excellent long term strategic alignment for any mission statement.

My wife Betsy and I attended a very interesting lecture last night hosted at the Santa Fe Institute by Dr. Tim Buchman, Ph.D., M.D., who is an external professor at SFI. (NOTE: This lecture is now on video online here)

Dr. Buchman’s day job is Founding Director of Emory Center for Critical Care and Professor of Surgery at Emory School of Medicine. The title of of Dr. Buchman’s lecture was: Secrets of the Heart: The Electrocardiogram, Complex Systems Science and Fundamental Laws of Biology.

As is often the case at SFI, the lecture brought together several pathways of interest that reminded me of the Arc de Triomphe de l’Étoile that so fascinated me as a child, where every type of vehicle comes together at variable speeds, volume and noise levels, carrying all types of cargo, yet despite the chaos and occasional fender bender, traffic flows and life continues.

The Arc de Triomphe network analogy works well for the mega-disciplinary approach required of my work with Kyield—including our semantic healthcare platform, as well as the complexity of human biology, with the Arc serving nicely to visually simulate the cellular traffic (blood), even if lacking in muscular pump function. The beauty of complexity research at SFI is that researchers are increasingly able to confirm theory with mathematics and evidence from testing in real world environments like an ICU.

Those who have studied complexity and chaos may already be aware of the importance of nonlinear dynamics in healthcare, although confirmation of research in this area is fascinating. For example, the old assumption in medicine that the ‘normal’ heart and respiratory rhythms regulated by devices in the ICU is the most beneficial turns out to be false. The lecture revealed compelling evidence that heart patterns are to a surprising degree predictive of mortality, and that after two weeks in the ICU with a ‘regular’ rhythm (synchronized), patients have an EKG pattern that is less than optimal for longevity, which is one reason why extended stays in ICU are best avoided when possible.

Dr. Buchman reports that to date research shows that the human body performs much better over time, to include quality of life and duration, with ‘irregular’ rhythms, or lack of synchronicity. To date it appears that forecasting optimum variations have failed—important lesson being that variables in exercise, or cardiorespiratory rhythms, is essential—the body appears equipped to adapt to variable activity much better than synchronization. For this reason, in Dr. Buchman’s ICU, the respirators now intentionally represent an asynchronous system. It’s probably a safe assumption that intentional asynchronism will play an increasingly important role in medicine moving forward.

This lecture was timely for me as it reinforced the importance of providing our rationally designed semantic healthcare platform to optimize care in real-time, as well as improve the quality of data for predictive medicine and future discovery. Mobile health aligns very well with the needs of patients, payers, and researchers in many ways, not least of which is providing anonymous data for prevention, which is key to driving costs lower and improving quality of life—potentially on a massive scale.

I spoke to David Krakauer after the lecture—chair of faculty at SFI and brilliant guy, who said that the lecture will be up on their web site soon. I will share on Twitter when it becomes available. Professor Krakauer reminded me of another good resource on this topic at ReyLab (Institute for Nonlinear Dynamics in Medicine) run by Ary Goldberger, M.D. at Harvard.

SFI is kind enough to offer the two videos freely on the web, each of which is about 90 minutes in length. I watched both lectures within 24 hours of writing this so they are still fresh. I agree with about 90% of the lecture series and highly recommend it, but my recommendation will come with a brief critique and a warning regarding the other 10%.

The central point of the lecture from the historical review of innovation is that our history books are filled with innovators who are often mis-credited with inventions that were largely copied, stolen, or slightly improved versions of other’s work. In several cases he unveils the essential contributions of others who were generally not credited properly and lack celebrity, which is appreciated.

What bothers me about the message Andrew projects is that it’s very similar to the message coming out of finance in leading MBA schools a decade ago, which is sourced in cynicism– that there is no room for ethics or justice in business, that product quality is much less important than exploitation skills or market power, and creativity only matters relating to exploitation of others. While that has been largely true in the past, I reject that philosophy outright for the future, and particularly sourced from universities. Indeed, it is precisely because of that philosophy in so many of our MBA schools and board rooms that U.S. business is doing so poorly, and why Silicon Valley is experiencing a sea change, or a “nuclear winter”, as one leading VC partner described the valley before we both left.

Our society is quite skilled in pronouncing the obvious after the fact, supported by all manner of measuring tools, but we are severely challenged in measuring the invisible, which is often far more important. For example, while we understand the value to society of exploitation of other’s work in the past, does anyone have a clue to the enormous cost? What is the cost of not inventing? What is the cost of not sharing the most valuable science with those who exploit? Do we really think the smartest people in the world are fools? Apparently so.

The problem for venturing came to a head in the late 1990s as me-tooism reached epidemic proportions when the smartest people were exploited by the creatively challenged. Silicon Valley has been in various phases of decline ever since. The synonym for exploitation is ‘abuse’. It’s difficult to build the type of sustainable networks called for in this lecture when abusing partners or customers as the lecture also calls for. We are a networked world, increasingly aware, and SV no longer has a monopoly on venturing.

The culture of Silicon Valley often misses a key point that threatens their future. While they expect and demand enormous incentives for their work, many seem to misunderstand that the rest of the world needs incentives as well, and without the rest of the world’s support SV is toast; so a rethink of philosophy, culture, and modeling is past due. To some extent the same is true for the U.S., but truthfully my experience has demonstrated that most of this cultural problem is restricted to very few boardrooms in monopolist corporate cultures, very few business schools, a handful of VC firms, and a few firms on Wall Street. Everyone else in America seems to get it.

While it’s true that Microsoft and the early Apple were of these types of cultures, as were many others, I don’t think many thought leaders would agree that Apple isn’t focused on product quality today (Hargadon worked at Apple in the early 1990s), or much question that Microsoft needs to focus on authentic internal innovation in order to thrive in the future. The world today is much different than just five years ago and barely recognizable to the world of a decade ago.

I would like to see professors of entrepreneur programs focus less on exploitation and more on increasing structural integrity within innovation networks, which is essential. In Kyield for example we have focused on providing real incentives and protection for intellectual contributions, which builds trust, without which brilliant and creative people at best stop subsidizing those who have been trained only to exploit their work, and at worst begin to undermine the system in place, which is precisely what is happening to SV.

That said, the bulk of the lecture series is very good to excellent on the topic of innovation and the need for building strategic networks. While I disagree with Hargadon’s claim that “the network is the innovation”—to imply that Einstein and DaVinci are more irrelevant than an MBA student is ridiculous—it is a message that needs to be better understood, particularly in networked industries or regulated markets like computing, pharma, and energy, which is Hargadon’s specialty. More independent or stand alone innovations still require networks, but of a different kind.

The most valuable aspect of the lecture is the occasional focus on the enormous need for scientists and policy makers to focus research on markets, or the actual needs of people, rather than what scientists and politicians project from a conflicted chair. Our basic R&D system is wasteful and inefficient due in part to the culture and in part to poor investments that are simply impossible to adopt, whether for social, technical, or economic reasons. Granted that basic research is usually not intended to result in products, rather a better understanding, but it’s also true that the primary sponsor is broke in part because of the lack of accountability throughout the system. Fiscal discipline is absent in all of the scientific disciplines.

It certainly wasn’t planned, but our decision to relocate to Santa Fe earlier this year combining with many years of work that included overlapping interests with Santa Fe Institute (SFI), several shared relationships, and the ‘invisible hand’ of chance all apparently had something to do with my attending this year’s annual conference at SFI. I’m glad I was able to attend for a number of reasons.

The conference celebrated a convergence of related events in time — 25th anniversary of SFI, with a theme of evolution in a nod to the bicentennial of the birth of Charles Darwin (Feb 12, 1809), but the underlying theme and lecture by the conference organizer — David Krakauer, chair of faculty — was the evolution of evolutionary theory, and I would add semantics of evolution (meaning), which is where the conference debate itself evolved by the end. Today’s use of the word ‘evolution’ seems to be limitless, although no other English word seems appropriate to describe a similar process in economics, sociology, technology, etc. etc. etc. One can certainly argue that everything man caused is by extension evolutionary, as we are biological life forms, but it doesn’t do much good when drilling down for learning.

I made a comment on the economic question that went something like the following… I moderated a very similar forum (in our GWIN Pro network) virtually a decade ago that included some of the participants cited (Krugman’s paper of a decade ago for example– I exchanged a few emails comparing biology and economics with Krugman during that era), and I have since come to the conclusion that economics is more like God, and biological evolution more like nature. The income and cost disparities were widely known (financial crisis was near the core of the debate), so from a crises prevention perspective– the financial crisis appeared intentionally self-destructive (aggregate). Before markets can work and behavioral economics can be credible, participants must have a choice (Alluding to the earlier comments by Doyne that implied a correlation between monopolies and crises – at least I took it that way).

Please understand the context in which I used the word God here; taking from Stewart Brand’s opening lecture when speaking about managing the world’s ecology — similarly in economics (directly interconnected to ecology), we are essentially acting as a God and so had best become good at it. I am not speaking here in the spiritual sense, but rather power and intent. I was surprised at the positive response to my comment.

I also attended the business network meeting, which was a much smaller sub-group primarily of reps from corp giants who are willing and able to pay the substantial annual subscription. SFI has gone through a change in management and reevaluation during the past year, including the business network. SFI was intentionally founded as an ongoing experimental work in progress, and has apparently gone through an important period of evolution itself recently.

From my perspective there are three primary strengths of SFI, which I have followed for 15 years or so off and on, consuming much of what is made publicly available.

The model is a very small core supported by external faculty around the world, and an independent institute that intentionally explores areas that are overlooked by academia, which tends to herd towards trendy science. So SFI is neither conventional nor large and bureaucratic– for that reason alone they attract many of the world’s leading scientists. Most of the big contributions to science, including Darwin, were largely outcasts of the academic mainstream at the time.

The interdisciplinary focus allows researchers to learn from each other and work together on many of the really big problems facing the planet, often temporarily so that they maintain their long-term job — usually at a major university. I have invested a great deal of time and design on this issue.

The location now on top of a small hill overlooking Santa Fe with the southern Rockies staring down provides an excellent mix of culture, nature, solitude, and peers.

It’s not by accident that LANL scientists enjoy the area so much. A long rich history combined with modern art, culture, and excellent food doesn’t hurt, and importantly what everyone cites over and over again — 15 minutes to anywhere in town is actually more like a half hour, but certainly influences me. It has always seemed obvious to me that smart people attempting to get things done cannot enjoy long commutes, raising many questions….. did I mention climate?

The conference wound up on Sat. (11/14/09) night with a VIP dinner of the combined SFI and SF Symphony Orchestra, which is also celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, and like SFI and most other non-profits, no doubt experienced some tough times in the past year with funding.

It turns out that Felix Mendelssohn (a German music prodigy who found success in England) was also born in early Feb of 1809, so after dinner at the Eldorado Hotel, everyone walked a block down the street to the Lensic Theatre to enjoy a concert of Mendelssohn’s music with actors playing Darwin and Mendelssohn.

It was the first time I had been in the Lensic or attended a concert by the Santa Fe Symphony — very impressive for a city of any size. As if nature were conspiring with the synchronization of the events, when the concert ended we walked into the street to find it snowing; beautiful with the lights of SF and a fitting end to an enjoyable few days for many.

Observing lives lost and trauma from preventable tragedies is among the most frustrating experiences of my career. However, whatever frustration we feel pales in comparison to the pain victims and their family members experience. Prevention of human-caused catastrophes has long been a top priority of our R&D. We have a desire and an obligation to […]

It is truly an honor to share our recent announcement and welcome Vice Admiral Phil Wisecup USN (Ret.) to our board of directors. Phil joins Dr. Robert Neilson who is now special advisor to the board. As their bios only partially reflect, Phil and Rob are exceptional additions to Kyield’s leadership. Vice-Admiral James P. “Phil” Wisecup (Ret.) brings 40 […] […]

From theorem to market through multiple valleys of death and beyond This is a personal story about our real-world experience, which contains little resemblance to most of what is written about entrepreneurism and technology commercialization. While our journey has been longer than most, scientific commercialization (aka deep tech) typically requires two de […]

Even though some companies may seem well positioned, the fundamental economic and business environment is rapidly changing. To the best of my awareness, survival from this point forward will essentially require a strong AI OS for the super majority of organizations.

I wanted to share a general pattern that is negatively impacting organizations in part due to the compounding effect it has on the broader economy. Essentially this can be reduced to misapplying the company’s playbook in dealing with advanced technology (AI systems).

Every year, natural catastrophes (nat cat) are highly visible events that cause major damage across the world. In 2016 the cost of nat cats were estimated to be $175 billion, $50 billion of which were covered by insurance, reflecting severe financial losses for impacted areas.[i] The total cost of natural catastrophes since 2000 was approximately […]

The focus should be maximize benefits from our inventions, engineered systems and technologies to recreate a sustainable competitive advantage. One benefit of lagging behind other countries in infrastructure is that much progress has been made in recent years. Future projects can be embedded with hardware that enable intelligent networks, which can then be m […]

Learn about the background of Kyield and the multi-disciplinary science involved with AI systems, with a particular focus on AI augmentation for knowledge work and how to achieve a continuously adaptive learning organization (CALO).

The photo above represents a learning opportunity especially relating to survival and adaptation. Recently completed by my wife Betsy[i], the artwork was inspired by our visit to the Acoma Pueblo a few months ago, which is one of the oldest continuously inhabited communities in North America. Ancestors of current residents have lived on top of a 360-foot tal […]